Grattan on Friday: Peter Dutton’s bid for more crime-fighting power has bought him a fight

No one should be surprised that the Home Affairs department, with its ambitious minister Peter Dutton and his activist secretary, Mike Pezzullo, is feeling its oats. When Malcolm Turnbull granted Dutton his wish for a mega department, it was obvious how things would go.

Now we are seeing a power play which has set Dutton and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop at odds, and raised questions about striking the right balances in a cyber age that brings new threats but also new invasive technology to counter them.

The issue immediately at hand is whether Home Affairs can drag the Australian Signals Directorate – a defence-aligned organisation which spies electronically on foreign targets – into the fight against a broad range of crime in Australia.

As the head of ASD, Mike Burgess, succinctly put it in a draft note for Defence Minister Marise Payne, Home Affairs wants legislative change “to enable ASD to better support a range of Home Affairs priorities”.

The latest move, as documented in bureaucratic correspondence leaked last weekend – everyone assumes in order to blow up the proposal - came from Pezzullo. But Pezzullo was formalising a plan foreshadowed by Dutton as soon as he was sworn into the Home Affairs portfolio.

In December Fairfax reported Dutton saying that ASD would be used more in Australian investigations into terrorism, drug-smuggling, child exploitation and other cross-border crimes.

Put in the simplest terms, under the plan the Australian Federal Police, ASIO and similar agencies would collect the data, as they do now, while an empowered ASD could supply the technical capability to disrupt or prevent the crime online.

After publication of the leaked correspondence in the Sunday Telegraph, headlined “Secret plan to spy on Aussies”, Pezzullo, Defence Department secretary Greg Moriarty, and Burgess issued an opaque statement that, when you cut through the bureaucratise, indicated the option for a wider use of ASD was on the table.

Meanwhile Bishop told reporters “there is no plan for the government to extend the powers of the Australian Signals Directorate so that it could collect intelligence against Australians or covertly access private data”.

That would appear to be true, but it is also true Dutton had already flagged publicly a proposal to expand ASD’s remit, and the Burgess draft note clearly stated that the Home Affairs department had advised it was briefing its minister to write to the Defence Minister.

The fine distinction between expanding ASD powers but it not collecting intelligence on Australians is where the confusion lies, and that will need to be carefully laid out.

Bishop and Dutton have a record as sparring partners. The two ministers contrast in style but both are tough operators who don’t take a backward step. This is the second matter on which they’ve recently clashed – the other was Dutton’s desire to bring in white South African farmers on the basis they were subject to “persecution”.

Dutton, announcing this week AFP deputy commissioner Karl Kent as the first Transnational Serious and Organised Crime Coordinator within Home Affairs, told a news conference that the capacities of various agencies had to be looked at “including obviously … the capacity of ASD”.

Dutton stressed any change would have safeguards. “As for some claim that there’s going to be some spying taking place on Australian citizens, it’s complete nonsense,” he said.

“If there was to be any look at ways in which we could try and address the cyber threat more effectively, it would be accompanied by the usual protections, including warrant powers”, ticked off by the attorney-general or the justice system.

Defending his position on Thursday, Dutton talked about child exploitation, a guaranteed hot button, pointing out that people were conveying “images of sexual acts against children in live-streaming on the internet.

"We’ve got to deal with that threat. We have the ability, potentially, to disrupt some of those servers. At the moment the ASD … could disrupt that server if it was in operation offshore, but not if it was operating out of Sydney or Melbourne,” he said.

It is believed that Defence is unimpressed with the move on ASD, from July 1 a statutory agency but traditionally in its bailiwick. But it is Bishop who is most obviously taking the issue on, even though her portfolio is not directly involved.

For Bishop, the exercise has flouted the manner in which such a major bid for change should be handled, leaving most ministers blindsided.

Home Affairs’ case receives some support from a recent submission to the parliamentary joint committee on law enforcement by David Irvine, former head of ASIO and now chairman of the Cyber Security Research Centre, a body set up to promote industry investment in cyber security research.

Irvine writes: “Both national security threats and criminal activity exploit the internet in similar ways. Both need to be countered or managed using similar investigative tools and techniques.”

“Australia’s national capacity to counter threats and criminal activity using cyber investigative tools is relatively under-developed, uncoordinated and fragmented”, making it “difficult for agencies to cope with the pace of technical change,” he says.

Irvine argues for a new body to provide “expert technical cyber investigative services in support of law enforcement and national security investigations”, done by Commonwealth and state agencies.

He says such a body might fall within Home Affairs “but it would depend extensively upon the offensive and defensive cyber operational skills of the Australian Signals Directorate, and its offshoot the Australian Cyber Security Centre”.

The tug of war over ASD may have some way to run but with cyber risks becoming an increasing preoccupation, at this stage Dutton and Pezzullo appear to have a head start. It is now a question of where Malcolm Turnbull will come down. It is hard to see him saying no to Dutton.

But the implications of any extension of ASD’s remit should be fully debated sooner rather than later. As the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Margaret Stone wrote earlier this year, a change to ASD’s “focus for its covert or intrusive intelligence related activities to people and organisations inside Australia would be a profound one”.

The pros and cons of the Dutton bid need a lot of public airing before the government reaches a conclusion, rather than that conclusion being presented as a fait accompli.

Look forward to a fairer Australia.? Not under this government. Dutton would like to be PM. I think the Liberal/National Party(s) are so out of touch with what people in Australia actually think, the inner - party politics could be so stupid as to put Dutton up. Turnbull is clearly on his last legs, but apart from Bishop (no thanks very much) who else is there.? Canavan? ScoMo?

HBS Guy wrote:Some were seriously considering calling on Costello. Far out, he wouldn’t have a clue!

I heard that. Ridiculous. Howard and Costello.and ..ta da the GST.... then we had Abbott and Costello. ? I mean, seriously? Has- beens should stay schtumm in my opinion.

Notice the Libs still roll out that Howard. ? I mean.. enough is ENOUGH.

No MORE OF THE SAME... OR WORSE.!

Seems many Australians aren't very interested in politics. This is learned behaviour.

Compulsory voting ? I am undecided n whether it is a good thing, or not.

Like our last Local Council elections... the guy that won the Mayoral position, a sitting Councillor previously, spent a fortune, supplied by Chinese developers contributions to his campaign, upon big billboards every where, and signs so numerous you couldn't avoid seeing his fat f'n face .Guess what..? He got be Mayor.

Now? he has been charged with corruption and perjury by the CCC here. HE refuses to stand down.... altho all the other Mayors , and such, so charged, have stood aside. ( there is a shitfight happening here in local councils at the moment. The whole of the IPSWICH City Council have been sacked.)

But OH NO.. this prick actually thinks all his denials and claims of innocence allow him to stay as Mayor. He is going to bluff it out.

It is SO contemptuous of him... but HE doesn't see it that way.He thinks he is in the right. Well, he is a god-fearing Man after all.

Nah its Goebbels, isn't it.? Wasn't he the Nazi (oops) who recognised the new 'television' as the greatest mass manipulator on EARTH.?

That WAS Goebbels. wasn't it? . As time passes all this new information presents itself. Whatever the name, the man was an EVIL GENIUS, who recognised the perfect vector for hatred and bias. TELEVISION.

No... TV WAS around... Goebbels recognised its power. It was a very NEW thing. But it was a recognition, primarily of the power of propaganda, on film.

I even think I remember seeing a (ta da ) TV show, where they said the Ministry under Goebbels actually provided free early TV sets to loyal German citizens, to which were sent those very films you mentioned. And of COURSE.. those films of Der Fuhrer.!

History of television in GermanyFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaTelefunken receiver from 1933.

The first regular electronic television service in Germany began in Berlin on March 22, 1935, as Deutscher Fernseh Rundfunk. Broadcasting from the Fernsehsender Paul Nipkow, it used a 180-line system, and was on air for 90 minutes, three times a week. Very few receivers were ever privately owned, and viewers went instead to Fernsehstuben (television parlors). During the 1936 Summer Olympics, broadcasts, up to eight hours a day, took place in Berlin and Hamburg. The Nazis intended to use television as a medium for their propaganda once the number of television sets was increased,[1] but television was able initially to reach only a small number of viewers, in contrast to radio. Despite many technical improvements to camera technology, allowing for higher resolution imaging, by 1939, and the start of World War II, plans for an expansion of television programming were soon changed in favor of radio. The production of the TV receiver E1, that had just started was cancelled because of the war. Nevertheless, the Berlin station, along with one in occupied Paris (Fernsehsender Paris), remained on the air for most of World War II. A special magazine called Fernsehen und Tonfilm (i.e. Television and Sound film) was published.

History of television in GermanyFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaTelefunken receiver from 1933.

The first regular electronic television service in Germany began in Berlin on March 22, 1935, as Deutscher Fernseh Rundfunk. Broadcasting from the Fernsehsender Paul Nipkow, it used a 180-line system, and was on air for 90 minutes, three times a week. Very few receivers were ever privately owned, and viewers went instead to Fernsehstuben (television parlors). During the 1936 Summer Olympics, broadcasts, up to eight hours a day, took place in Berlin and Hamburg. The Nazis intended to use television as a medium for their propaganda once the number of television sets was increased,[1] but television was able initially to reach only a small number of viewers, in contrast to radio. Despite many technical improvements to camera technology, allowing for higher resolution imaging, by 1939, and the start of World War II, plans for an expansion of television programming were soon changed in favor of radio. The production of the TV receiver E1, that had just started was cancelled because of the war. Nevertheless, the Berlin station, along with one in occupied Paris (Fernsehsender Paris), remained on the air for most of World War II. A special magazine called Fernsehen und Tonfilm (i.e. Television and Sound film) was published.

Yes, thanks Aussie. Do you notice no names of the Reich are included.?If you looked deeper, you'd find the name Goebbels as an early promoter of television. Perhaps you have. I just remember this SBS (?) program ( what other station on Oz TV would air this? )

The fate of Amber Rudd offers some hope to Australians who disapprove of Dutton and his methods

Britain’s home secretary, Amber Rudd, resigned last week over an immigration scandal the unpleasantness of which would have made our Peter Dutton proud.

Ms Rudd was supposed to be implementing a harsh policy of deportations, sending back immigrants to the Caribbean who had arrived in Britain over a period of 20 years from 1948.

Known as the Windrush generation, after the ship that brought them from Jamaica, the immigrants arrived under a program designed to fill labour shortages at cheap rates. Many stayed on in Britain while a large proportion had a tenuous legal status because their documentation was incomplete.

While Rudd was telling her prime minister, Theresa May, that she was aiming at “increased forced removals by more than 10% over the next few years” she was simultaneously telling a Commons committee, “We do not have targets for removals”.

As Rudd shows, saying misleading things can be more catastrophic to a political career than running a deliberately inhumane policy.

On home turf, home affairs minister Dutton, also has responsibly for immigration, refugees and asylum seekers, yet he can revel with impunity in the inhumanity of his dead-end scheme of permanent detention.

He can seek to undermine the rule of law with rabble-rousing attacks on judges, magistrates and members of tribunals handling refugee and immigration cases. He has floated a “quasi election” proposal whereby the public would be invited to approve lawyers for judicial positions. He claims that lawyers who act for asylum seekers are “unAustralian”.

His department can delay or refuse the transfer of critically ill refugees from Manus Island or Nauru to hospitals in Australia. He sends people back to the places of torture from which they have fled. He thinks he should have unchallengeable powers to ban entire nationalities or any “specified class of persons” from either travelling to or staying in Australia on their current visas. He has said that he would prefer to accept refugees who were from persecuted minorities in Syria, most of who happen to be Christians.

He persists in linking terrorism to asylum seekers and dishonestly calls boat arrivals “illegals”. He described the “Armani refugees” on Manus as taking advantage of Australia’s generosity. After the removal of references to the Refugee Convention from the Migration Act Dutton now wants Australia to “rethink” its commitment to the convention while simultaneously abandoning his duty of guardianship towards children held on Nauru.

He has denied claims of a plan to expand the role of the Australian Signals Directorate into domestic spying, nonetheless he thinks it’s a good idea.

Naturally, with this range of qualifications Dutton wants to be prime minister.

Unlike Amber Rudd, Dutton’s regressive values are the foundation of his startling promotion within the ranks of the government. The last minister who gently chided his overreach was the outgoing attorney general George Brandis, who belatedly was critical of ministerial attacks on legal institutions and those who practise in them.

This was met by a snarling response from Dutton on one of his soft soap sessions with the broadcaster Ray Hadley.

Not only is the home affairs minister in charge of immigration, customs and borders but also a massive and repressive security apparatus, described by Professor George Williams, dean of law at the University of New South Wales, as being on a scale unprecedented in the western world.

In Britain, the width and breadth of functional responsibilities has proved to be beyond the grasp of a succession of home secretaries. The Bagehot columnist in The Economist recently said that the Home Office “is a nightmare to run”:

... being on top of your brief is almost impossible in a department with so many sprawling responsibilities ... The department is also littered with land mines: one former home secretary says that at any one time there are 30 people in the Home Office who can destroy the home secretary’s career.

Here are a few lessons that Peter Dutton might bear in mind:

- In 2004 Beverley Hughes, a junior home secretary, resigned because she said she was unaware of a visa fraud, when she had known about it for at least a year.- In 2006, home secretary John Reid admitted his immigration systems were not “fit for purpose” after it was revealed that applications were not being checked. In 2006, it emerged there was a backlog of 502,000 claims for asylum that the department hadn’t processed.- In 2011, the head of the UK Border Force resigned after claims that he had relaxed visa processing rules without telling Home Secretary Theresa May.- In 2013 the Home Office was accused of having lost track of 174,000 people who remained in Britain on expired visas.- In 2016, it also emerged that the whereabouts in the country was unknown of a further 71,000 international students who had finished their studies.

Quite apart from that, in 2004 home secretary David Blunkett resigned after being accused of fast-tracking a visa application for his ex-lover’s nanny, and this was at a time when he had been tightening the visa process.

Under the prime ministerships of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown there were six home secretaries over a 13-year period.For the committed band of citizens who disapprove of Dutton and his methods, this potted history shows there is hope yet.

Underneath the home affairs minister is a vast machinery of functionaries exercising delegated powers on the basis of “reasonable suspicion”.

Here’s an example of how reasonable suspicion works: Livinus Okwume, a Nigerian national arrived at Brisbane airport in July 2005 on a business (short-stay) visa, hoping to attend a nursing conference. He was apprehended in the baggage area on an “intuitive basis”, maybe because of his skin colour.

He was interviewed by officers of the commonwealth, including Kay O’Connell and Benjamin Kriss. O’Connell thought all his paperwork was in order and that he was a genuine nurse, however Kriss formed a “reasonable suspicion” that Okwume’s passport was bogus.

At some point of the interviews he said he wanted to apply for asylum in Australia, whereupon his visa was cancelled, he was taken under guard to a motel for the night, and then removed to the Baxter Immigration Reception and Processing Centre near Port Augusta, South Australia, where he spent the next eight months as an unlawful non-citizen.

In Okwume v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, Justice Natalie Charlesworth of the federal court found that Kriss and two other officers had not formed their reasonable suspicions reasonably, so the first 18 hours of detention had been unlawful. Okwume was awarded a total of $1,600 in damages and $400 in lieu of interest.

The judge went on to find that the remaining eight months in detention were lawful.

Okwume’s file had come into the hands of another officer, Michelle Grau in Brisbane. She received a report from a forensic document examiner in Canberra, Trevor Alt, who said he could see nothing untoward with the passport.

Nonetheless, Grau had ongoing concerns about Okwume’s identity and asked for legal advice from Miriam Moore, the director of legal opinions within the department. Her advice was:

Given the visa remains cancelled the detention would remain valid. I also note you are correct in pointing out that the visa would have ceased by now anyway, so unless he holds some other kind of visa he would not be lawful and would need to be detained.

It doesn’t get more Kafkaesque than that. The forensic people say his passport is valid despite the reasonable suspicion people thinking it is bogus. But because while in detention his visa has lapsed it is lawful to continue to detain him.

Both Okwume and the commonwealth appealed and a decision arrived on Friday 4 May, nearly 13 years after he was detained at Brisbane airport. The full federal court dismissed both appeals. Justice Richard White was the only judge who found for Okwume and against the commonwealth.

The outcome means that Justice Charlesworth must have been right. The commonwealth successfully applied for a nondisclosure order in relation to reports on the incident prepared by Kriss, whose original “reasonable suspicion” started this cavalcade of misfortune.

Okwume applied for refugee status while he was held at Baxter, and after an appeal was successful. He got a protection visa and was able to get out of detention – otherwise he might still be there.

Grau has been elevated to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (migration and refugee division) while Okwume is now an Australian citizen.

Australians used to understand that if someone is to be locked up for an extended period a judge should be the one doing the locking up. Yet, here there was not so much as a sniff of a judge anywhere near the process that incarcerated Livinus Okwume.

All that it took was one of the minister’s functionaries to have a suspicion – reasonable or otherwise.

Peter Dutton ranked as worst health minister in 35 years in poll of doctorsAustralian Doctor magazine says 1,100 readers took part in survey and quoted one GP as saying Dutton ‘will be remembered as the dullest, least innovative and most gullible’

Doctors have overwhelmingly voted Peter Dutton the worst health minister in living memory, according to a poll conducted by Australian Doctor magazine.

Forty-six per cent of the nearly 1,100 survey respondents voted Dutton the worst health minister in the last 35 years.

The magazine has a readership of around 20,000, mostly general practitioners and specialists.

Dutton took on the health portfolio after the Coalition won the 2013 federal election, but was moved to immigration and border protection in December’s ministerial reshuffle.

Medical groups have been vociferous in their opposition to the introduction of a Medicare copayment.

The government was forced to back down from its original $7 copayment plan, instead pursuing a $5 cut to rebates for doctors treating non-concession holder adult patients and a range of other reductions that doctors say would result in a cumulative cost to patients.

Head of the Australian Medical Association, Dr Brian Owler, said the changes had prompted “some of the angriest emails from doctors” that the organisation had received in a long time.

The Australian Doctor article quotes Tasmanian GP Dr Donald Rose as saying: “Dutton will be remembered as the dullest, least innovative and most gullible for swallowing the reforms from his thinktank ... Although I am glad he has been demoted, it would have been good if he was still around to take responsibility for the current chaos he has caused.”

Former Gillard government health minister Nicola Roxon, who held the portfolio from 2009 to 2011, came in second after Dutton, securing 17% of the vote.

Current prime minister Tony Abbott, who was health minister from 2003 until the Howard government lost the 2007 election, rounded out the top three with 13% of the vote.